# Selects

## Specifying A Select Clause

Of course, you may not always want to select all columns from a database table. Using the `from` method, you can specify a custom `from` clause for the query:

```javascript
var getResults = query.from('users')
    .get('name,email,age');
writeDump(getResults);
```

Individual columns can contain fully-qualified names (i.e. "some\_table.some\_column"), fully-qualified names with table aliases (i.e. "alias.some\_column"), and even set column aliases themselves (i.e. "some\_column AS c"). Columns can be a single column, a list or columns (comma-separated), or an array of columns.

```javascript
var getResults = query.from('users')
    .get('name as myAccountName,users.email,age');
writeDump(getResults);
```

```javascript
var getResults = query.from('users as myTableAlias')
    .get( columns = ['name as myAccountName' ,'myTableAlias.email' ,'age'], options= { datasource='myOtherDatasource'} );
writeDump(getResults);
```

The `distinct` method allows you to force the query to return distinct results:

```javascript
var getResults = query.from('users')
    .select('email')
    .distinct();
writeDump(getResults);
```

(Note that `distinct` applies to the entire query, not just certain fields.)

If you already have a query builder instance and you wish to add a column to its existing select clause, you may use the `addSelect` method:

```javascript
var getResults = query.from('users')
    .where('age','>=','18');
getResults = getResults.addSelect('name,email,age').get();
writeDump(getResults);
```


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